Auction Sniping

In the conventional sense, ‘auction sniping’ is bidding in the final few seconds of an auction. On sold.sg it’s slightly different, because everyone is bidding in the final 10 seconds.

When we refer to auction sniping, it’s about coming into an auction, and winning with just a handful of bids. There are several ways you could approach this:

- As the price of an auction increases, it naturally attracts fewer bidders. As this happens, you’re in a better position to potentially win with just a few bids. The end price you pay may be higher than normal, but as it requires fewer bids to win, you’ll still walk away with a bargain.
- It’s all about the competition. If you’ve watched the auction for a while, you will have an idea of how many people are bidding. If you spot just a few bidders, then jump on in.

Aggressive bidding

Although this is not advanced in terms of complexity, it does require an experienced bidder to be confident enough to pull it off. It is also a risky strategy, so proceed with caution.

First, find an auction with little competition, that is free of any Auto-Bidders (a Manual-Only auction is perfect for this). Once you start bidding, try and forget about bidding in the last few seconds. You need to appear as though you have 1,000 bids in your account, and will do anything to win the product, i.e. intimidate the other bidders. As soon as you’re outbid, hit the bid button. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Eventually, the competition will dwindle, and they’ll probably move on to another auction, leaving you to win the auction!

Auto-Bidder layering

The Auto-Bidder can be a powerful tool, as long as you know the rules, so just to refresh your memory:

- You must have a minimum of 2 bids for the Auto-Bidder to be able to bid.
- Your maximum price has to be at least $1 higher than the current end price.
- Any unused Auto-Bids can be deleted at any point. All unused bids at the time the Auto-Bidder is deleted will be returned to your account.

The main problem you’ll face when using the Auto-Bidder is getting into a bidding battle with another Auto-Bidder. If this happens, all your bids will be placed instantly and you’ll lose your footing in the auction.

The concept of Auto-Bidder layering is placing just a small number of bids, within a small price range, to test the Auto-Bidder competition. This enables you to make a better decision on which bidding strategy to use. If another Auto-Bidder kicks in, just watch the auction for a bit longer, and let the single bidders compete against the other Auto-Bidder. Repeat this until you’re confident that a Auto-Bidder is no longer active.

The ideal scenario is that you see no Auto-Bidder competition with your initial test, in which case place the maximum number of bids, and begin to intimidate the newer Sold.sg users. This is another technique on how to bully your way to success.